High-powered Jacko Bellows For Notice: `Oi!`

Jacko is not the first person to use a TV commercial as a diving board into the pop-culture pool. But he`s certainly the largest and the loudest.

The 28-year-old Australian has been screaming at Americans for the last six months as the bellicose spokesman for Energizer batteries, pumping his arms wildly and bellowing ``Oi!``

He`s an Aussie ``Mr. T`` or ``Crocodile`` Dundee on steroids.

Now Jacko has made his jump, starring in NBC`s new adventure series ``The Highwayman`` (7 p.m. Fridays on Channel 5).

``I`m taking my career nice and slow,`` Jacko said, utterly sincere, during a recent appearance at Georgia Technological Institute as emcee of a regional competition of ``The MTV Energizer Rock `n` Roll Challenge,`` a nationwide ``battle of the bands.``

As a photographer approached, Jacko started mugging and grimacing outrageously, switching expressions faster than the motorized film advancer on the camera.

``Sorry, I`m a little bit camera-shy!`` he shouted.

``You gotta get people`s attention, and the commercial kinda does,`` he said.

``It jumps out of the TV and walks around on your furniture and jumps back in after the 30-second spot`s over. You look at TV today, it`s pretty boring. There`s not too many commercials today that really grab you and hold your attention.``

``Road Warrior`` in a big rig. Sam (``Flash Gordon``) Jones stars as the unnamed title character, a federal marshal who operates out of an enormous truck filled with high-tech gimmicks. When the series began production last year, Jones was the sole star; now Jacko, whose character is named Jetto, shares the road with him.

``We call him the Creature from Down Under,`` said Jones. ``He`s loud;

he`s obnoxious sometimes.``

``The Highwayman`` is made by Glen A. Larson, whose many TV credits include the slightly similar ``Knight Rider,`` about a talking, supercharged Trans-Am. It plays in a time slot traditionally dominated by action shows

``It`s not just screamin` and yellin`,`` Jacko said of his first dramatic role. During shooting for an upcoming episode, he said, ``I had to cry. That was really hard for me. I haven`t cried since I got caught speeding and the policeman said he was gonna take me license off me.``

Jacko said he did not foresee that the battery commercials, which run in six countries, would lead to a U.S. TV series. But he said he`s always wanted to make it in America.

He`s certainly made it in his native Australia, where his anything-for-publicity wild man act has taken him through several high-profile careers. His first shot in the public eye began in 1979, when he was still Mark Alexander Jackson, a 6-foot-2-inch 245-pound full forward in Australian-rules football, which is similar to rugby. His on-field antics got him dubbed ``The Clown Prince of Football.``

He also fought in several heavily promoted boxing matches. In 1985 he made two novelty rock records with accompanying videos titled ``My Brain Hurts`` and ``I`m an Individual.`` Both records went to No. 3 in Australia.

He also wrote a best-selling autobiography titled ``Jacko.`` And he`s been a ``reporter,`` conducting odd, impromptu confrontations on the street with strangers for ``The Ernie Sigley Show,`` a Down Under version of David Letterman.

``If everything falls apart tomorrow,`` he said in his everyday speaking voice, which still is considerably louder than most, ``I`m gonna go back and be a bricklayer, `cause I had some of the best times of my life as a bricklayer. I`ll never forget the day Underpants Harry chained my new car to a concrete mixer . . . .`` And he`s off-on an anecdote.